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The White House implosion therapy isn't working

Mike Curran

Posted:
10/30/2012 06:22:44 PM MDT

Curran Events

Implosion, n. - A type of behavior therapy in which the patient is repeatedly subjected to anxiety-arousing stimuli while the therapist attempts to extinguish the patient's anxiety and anxious behavior and replace them with more appropriate responses.

President Obama's re-election campaign has been unraveling at the seams since the first presidential debate of Oct. 3. But one could argue it started coming undone well before that for a myriad of reasons.

Home sales

On Oct. 24, CNN Money reported that new home sales rose in September to the highest level in more than two years, selling at an annual rate of 389,000 homes in the month according to the Census Bureau report, up 5.7 percent from the 368,000 sales pace in August. The last time sales were at this pace was in April 2010. Sounds great, right?

The worst year for new-home sales under George W. Bush was 2008 at 489,000 units. In only four years since 1963 have annual new-home sales come in below 400,000 units - 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 (American Thinker, Yossi Gestetner, Oct. 24).

Food stamps

As reported in Curran Events (Sept. 26, Ruidoso News), a record 44.7 million people received food stamps in fiscal 2011 (Wall Street Journal, June 19) and that they were becoming the latest middle-class entitlement.

As of Oct. 16 (The Weekly Standard) the United States Department of Agriculture, the federal department that runs the program, reported a record high enrollment for food stamps at 46.

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68 million people. When President Obama took office, enrollment in the food stamps program was 31.98 million.

Welfare

In the last four years welfare spending has exploded 32 percent (according to figures from the Senate Budget Committee and the Congressional Research Service [CRS]) as reported by Larry Kudlow, in Real Clear Politics, Oct. 20. According to Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, 83 means-tested welfare programs soared to over $1 trillion ($1.03) last year. It was the government's single largest budget item in the fiscal year 2011.

Crime

Violent crimes unexpectedly jumped 18 percent last year. It was the first rise in nearly 20 years, and property crimes rose for the first time in a decade (AP, Oct. 18). Historically, less than half of all crimes are reported to police.

Jobs

On Oct. 11, NBC News reported that new jobless claims dropped a seasonally adjusted 30,000 to 339,000, the lowest since February 2008. Reportedly, some were skeptical of this report, especially when it was revealed California had withheld some statistics. Sure enough, a week later (Oct. 18), CNBC reported that claims had jumped 46,000 from the previous week to a seasonally adjusted 388,000, the highest in four months.

"Improvements in the labor market will continue to be fitful and slow," said Joseph Trevisani, a market strategist at Worldwide Markets in Woodcliff, N.J.

Most economists see growth staying at or below 2 percent in the second half of the year (AP with a contribution by Reuters, Oct. 18).

Libya

On Nov. 7, it may be argued that the Libya debacle, along with Gov. Romney's sterling debate of Oct. 3, greatly helped negate Obama's re-election bid. A few astute politicians learned from Watergate - sometimes the cover-up is worse than the crime. It seems a few others haven't. You can sometimes get subordinates to take the hit for you - like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and have others go out to the media claiming it was only a spontaneous demonstration as U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice willingly did when she appeared on numerous news programs still claiming the murders of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty and Sean Smith were the result of an anti-Muslim video. You can even get true believers like Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to go out and shill for you, calling, "the criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the Libya terror attack 'Monday morning quarterbacking.' "

On Oct. 26, it was revealed by Fox News (and others) by "sources on the ground" in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command - who also told the CIA operators twice to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.

Claiming that the CIA chain of command turned down requests for help was an amateurish ploy, especially when the Agency has come out and denied it, firsthand.

These boys and girls don't play nice when the reputation of Agency is at stake. They quietly, and for the most part, quickly "correct" the matter. Regardless of who the offender is. This could easily explain the rash of "intelligence" emails that have been released over the past week or so contradicting nearly everything the White House has been saying about the Libya fiasco.

It's one thing to try out implosion therapy on the electorate, but when you attempt to throw the "Company" under the bus, you're going out to play in a different sandbox where you'll soon be running home to mommy - if able. Others have found that out down through time.

Ruidoso resident Mike Curran's political columns have been published in American Thinker, which "is a daily Internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans." He is a two-time New Mexico Press Association award recipient. He may be reached at mcurran@ruidosonews.com.